


Take Another Drag, Turn Me To Ashes

by Inspire_me_to_breathe



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Bitterness, Character Study, Introspection, Love/Hate, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1677281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inspire_me_to_breathe/pseuds/Inspire_me_to_breathe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Arthur is poisoned and Eames is broken. They stand in the middle of the highway, waiting for cars. They step off buildings to feel the cold tarmac below. They’re gonna kill each other, one of these days, and they know it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Another Drag, Turn Me To Ashes

**Take Another Drag, Turn Me To Ashes**

At the start, there is darkness. They wrap it around themselves, like criminals in the night. They fuck, they fight, they lie and cheat and speak bitterly until they can’t help but fuck again.

Arthur always likened Eames to a disease; a poison creeping through his veins, numbing his skin until he’s delirious with fever and hot with sweat. Eames smiled meanly when Arthur told him this. They were lying, entwined on a stained mattress with nothing but the darkness to get lost in. Arthur had scowled, shifted away, but Eames’ strong hands tightened over his waist and dragged him back, and Arthur followed his voice further into the night.

They had strained against each other, bodies clashing like lightening as they swore and snarled and clawed at each other’s backs. Eames had let Arthur push him to the edge, and then pushed him back. They had fought for balance on the precipice until Eames had collapsed in Arthur’s arms.

I fucking hate you, Arthur had whispered, and Eames had moaned against his skin.

This is the last time, Arthur had told him bluntly after they’d finished and were lying with their backs to each other on opposite sides of the bed. Eames had nodded, mute, because that was all he could do. Arthur had left then, disappearing like smoke in the morning.

You’re contagious, Arthur had snarled the next time they met, you’re killing my mind, you bastard.

Eames had laughed, well, darling, I'm afraid there’s no cure, no vaccination. You're sick until you die.

People don’t always see this when they look at Arthur. They don’t see the cancer inside him. The memories of hard bodies and aching muscles and cursing any kind of god that might be watching. Eames knows. He knows, because every time Eames sees Arthur he feels himself being torn apart as even more of him is offered to Arthur like a lamb at the slaughter. Arthur is a vengeful god.  

So Arthur is poisoned and Eames is broken.  They fit together well as a result, unless they want to clash and feel the burn of an unstoppable force colliding with an unmovable object. They stand in the middle of the highway, waiting for cars. They step off buildings to feel the cold tarmac below. They’re gonna kill each other, one of these days, and they know it.

Silence is hateful to them, but so are the voices that reveal all their secrets. Eames is desperately in love. Arthur knows. He hears it in the murmurs of his heartbeat when they lie together.

Arthur is not in love. He’s in hate, and falls even more so every night.

They can’t breathe. Eames asks him, can we just say the rest with no sound?

Arthur doesn’t know if that’s possible for them anymore. They curl around each other in the motel bath tub. The floor is stained and warped and the light flickers to the beat of the city, stretching across the cracked tiles and smeared mirror. Cold light and smoke drift in mist-clouds above their heads. Eames watches it fade, untouchable like a person’s soul, he supposes.

The water is no longer warm but their bodies are relaxed, limp and soft underneath rough nails and finger tips as Arthur traces a line of red down the raised bones of Eames’ back. Arthur’s hair is water-darkened and it coils in messy strands that weave about around the edges of his face, clinging to cheekbones and kissing the curves of his neck.

Porcelain fingers clutch a long cigarette and Eames slowly raises it to trembling lips, staring at Arthur. The other man smiles, tracing the edges of tattoos submerged in water. The ink comes alive underneath his fingers; it grows and spreads, staining the pale skin. Arthur can read the promises signed on Eames' skin; he knows every word and every line, remembers the meanings engraved in flowers and shapes and colours. He could lose himself in a chaotic world of lust and humanity, drawn to the rawness of the naked body, and the poetry of silence.

But he won’t. Not with Eames. Not like this. Not here. In this town. Not tonight.

The air is tinted grey and white and Eames can’t remember if it was morning or evening, but he can see the stars through the mottled glass. Arthur had once told him that to really see and to understand they must look past the constellations. Tear them down. Their stories and histories, revolving in endless orbit around this rock, tear it all down. Arthur had whispered that they must break through emotions. They were labels. He told Eames to feel without naming it. So Eames feels his heart, flickering like a caged bird exposed to sunlight.

You’re addictive, Arthur says, as if it’s an insult.

Eames knows. He knows he ruined Arthur, destroyed his innocence, spoilt his young healthy body and caved in his lungs.

Falling in hate is painful. It twists everything, until there is nothing familiar to hold onto. No dies or chips can keep their grip on reality when reality has betrayed them. Arthur knows who is to blame.

I threw your letters into the fire, Arthur tells Eames, they burned quickly. Turned to ash as if they knew that was all they were good for. Black and grey. The fire was low, getting old, spitting and hissing against the dark, but it consumed the words and grew brighter for it.

Eames has an old saying; those who burn brightest burn fastest.

Arthur glows, furious and hateful, while Eames flames. They will burn together, falling towards the wet ground like burnt-out stars. But it doesn’t matter. Their constellation was already skewered, mismatched. Their orbit was off, they sunk through the cold night air and were engulfed by the hungry sky.

Their heat fades. They die out.

In the end, there is darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a short songfic I wrote as an exercise - you can read it here http://archiveofourown.org/works/1495834 if you want :)
> 
> Please leave kudos/comment if you liked it. Thank you!


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